Mask waste disposal a growing challenge

THEY end up on our sidewalks and in our waterways, those blue-and-white medical masks that used to be on someone’s face.

They clog our rivers and drift out to sea where fish and other creatures could mistake them for food or dissolve into microplastics, harming corals and marine ecosystems.

Suddenly, contracting Covid-19 from discarded masks isn’t the only concern of the public.

Disposing the protective gear properly to minimise harm to the environment has become a headache.

This is part of a large and growing problem with personal protective equipment (PPE) during this pandemic, according to environment officials and activists in interviews this week.

They believe that one way to reduce medical waste and still protect the people’s health is to adopt reusable PPE.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) reports that over 19,000 metric tonnes of infectious wastes, including PPE suspected of harbouring pathogens, have been collected in just four months – from April to July – at the height of the lockdown.

But what is more challenging for the DENR are the infectious wastes coming from households: masks, food waste and other contaminated materials, which are hardly segregated and mixed with municipal waste, said Geri Geronimo Sanez, chief of the DENR’s hazardous waste management division.

The numbers are expected to rise with no immediate end in sight for the pandemic, prompting health and environmental groups to demand that the government lay out new waste disposal standards for the general public and promote reusable PPE whenever possible.

Before the pandemic, it was mostly hospitals that dealt with infectious wastes, according to Paeng Lopez, a campaigner for Health Care Without Harm.

But after the Covid-19 outbreak and with the universal and mandatory use of masks and face shields, that responsibility was added to the public.

Global scientific consensus says surgical masks are the most effective personal protection against droplets that carry the coronavirus.

But these masks are made of nonwoven polypropyline fabric, a type of plastic that is not biodegradable.

Most people are unaware that even masks have to be treated as infectious wastes in accordance with the law, Sanez said.

He strongly advised households to segregate and isolate the masks for at least three days – the period that a virus could survive outside a host – before disposing of them. — Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN